Choices
by KDPkaromuwi
Summary: Meet Oshima Yuko, an ordinary girl with a normal life. NOT. Fate's hard on her. After her mother died, she finds herself trying to adjust to a world she can only relate to books. Things would be a lot easier if it weren't for her identity crisis, a witch for a best friend, her crush constantly rejecting her advances, and shoving it to her rival she deserves to be called a Mundane.
1. Prologue

Hot flashes of pain tore all her body as she lay unmoving, eliciting a gasp from her lips that echoed throughout the entire cave. Her back felt like needles kept poking needlessly through it as she stayed laying on the uneven surface of the cave, but there was nothing she could do as her body motors seem determined not to cooperate, thus leaving her eyes squinting in pain as they focused on the damp ceiling.

She doubts she even has the energy left to make a move of standing, much less sitting up right. Not with her armor pinning her down, getting stickier by each passing second as her blood continues to pool underneath her battered body.

It's a good thing there is nothing left for her to do. She has done her duty and served her purpose. There is no more point in living. Not with her playing the part well. Too well.

All that's left to do is wait for the inevitable. She supposes that she should be scared and fighting the urge to remain there, lying and waiting for death to come while surrounded by bodies of her enemies mercilessly slaughtered in the battle. She knew that. But somehow, the thought of dying doesn't scare her. In fact, she finds it relieving.

She doesn't have to encounter any more deaths or loss. She is finally free. Or, she soon will be.

Liberty in death is what they call it.

She can still hear some swords clashing and some spells being casted from the outside though. Everyone outside the cave is probably cleaning up by dealing with the remaining enemies, no longer at high risk of losing their lives to protect something they care about.

It was all up to them to finish the mess they were all involuntarily thrown into, to destroy any slight chance of their enemies finding a way to come back after them years after this. Otherwise, all of her effort, her sacrifices, the lies she told… All of them would be in vain.

_But…was it all really worth it?_

It makes her wonder as she feels her body growing colder by the second, slowly but consistently being drained of its life source that leaves her already fair complexion paler than recommended. Her mind drifts off to the past, to the deeds she could have done, to the deaths she could and should have prevented, to the time when her life was at peace.

_Before life became a living hell and she became nothing but an actress playing a role._

Her choice was taken away from her. She can't say that she had an actual chance at life and prevent all these because she has an inkling she didn't. It was stripped away from her the moment she faced those damn pillars.

A bitter chuckle leaves her throat, followed by a strained wheezing caused by the stab wound on her torso where a cursed knife was previously embedded deep by the now-dead figure laying meters away.

Oh how cruel Fate is. She's already gone through so much and yet here she is, lying pathetically on the ground in her own pool of blood. Hasn't she suffered enough?

With clenched teeth, her walls came crumbling down as hot tears flow down pale cheeks. No one was around as they were too busy killing the rest of the resistance. None will witness this losing battle, much less these feelings she rarely lets out. It is about time she finally lets them out, considering how she's lying in her own death bed of blood.

Or should it be called the Pool of Death?

She laughed hoarsely at the joke she made, wincing and wishing that she would stop tormenting herself minutes before her death. She's dying, for Guardians' sake. The last thing she needed was drowning further in more dark humor.

Though after everything she's done, maybe she deserves it — the misery, the loneliness, the guilt… Does that make her a masochist? Does she have enough time left to repent for her sins? Probably not.

It was time.

She knew she only has a few minutes left before she passes into the Spectral Realm. The cave isn't a pretty sight for one's passing but she will have to take it as it is. It's not that bad. Not when she could have been dying in a dungeon from wounds inflicted on her, much less having her soul slowly ripped out from her body by some sadistic reapers.

Yep. A dirty cave was definitely ten times better.

The coldness has finally enveloped her entire body as her vision dims to the point where nothing but blur through her tunnel vision could be seen. Her organs, along with her limbs, have already failed as broken ribs poked deep into her lungs. Shouldn't she be already dead in her state of injury?

"_Oh Guardian," _Great. She just heard someone gasping, probably from the sight of her. She supposes that if she were one to witness her own bruised and broken body lying over blood too red to be healthy, she would be doing the same.

Looking through heavy lidded eyes, blurry figures came into view. There are probably three of them, or five. Six? She can't be sure. Her ears were roaring from the harsh beating of her heart failing to pump blood to her head or any part of the body with its already limited source.

She tried to let a smile form, but the connection she feels has already close to snapping. She tries to tell the others this, but all that comes out is a pitiful cry of pain as her literally drained body gets lifted up. As she feels her head gently being rested on the person's shoulder, a sweet and familiar scent overwhelms the last sense she has left to depend on. At least she feels comfortable in this person's arms.

Because as she took in a shallow breath, eyes fluttered shut as every remaining tension lessened.

It was when her body fell with a thud to the ground after the cart she was placed on stopped abruptly for the people who was taking her to a village to treat her injuries, for everyone to realize what they have failed to do so the moment her head loosely settled against the neck of the one who carried her.

It took half an hour after someone carried her for anyone to notice that they were all too late. There was nothing they could do.

Not when she was already gone.

_To be continued in **Chapter One: The Troubled Heir...**_


	2. Chapter One: Roommates

Her eyes burst open as her body jerks into awareness, chest heaving up and down rapidly as she gasped desperately for air. Dilated brown eyes slowly came to focus as she sat up and looked around, her drowsy state of mind quickly clearing up when the brown-haired realizes her location and the safety of it. Noticing that she had merely fallen asleep on the desk in her bedroom, Yuko lets out a deep breath of relief and leaned back against her chair, relaxing the muscles that seemed to have tensed due to the dream she had. _"What the heck was that dream about?" _she frowned, brows furrowing.

She sighed. Rubbing away whatever sleepiness remained from her eyes, the brown-haired stretched, wincing as she felt a cramp coming along her neck. She knew she shouldn't have decided to take a short shut eye by the desk with all the late night reading she was doing. There was no doubt she could have prevented this irritating neck cramp she was trying to massage away with her hand.

"Bad dream?" a familiar voice caught her attention, driving her thoughts away from the dream she was trying to comprehend.

Yuko's head turned to the source of the voice and nodded, grunting as she stretched one last time and rubbed the sore muscle on her neck. "I think so." Grimacing at the raspiness of her voice, eyes immediately searched for a source of relief. She sent a smile of gratitude when her roommate handed her a glass of water from her own study table. Noticing Takamina's tentativeness, she gave her an expectant look.

"Is it about your parents again?" Noticing her flinch, the shorter girl sent her an apologetic look, cringing at the bluntness. Yuko paused in her drinking before a second passed and she placed the glass on her table with a sigh, a stiff smile forming on her lips as she gave a slight nod of admission. Seeing the ribbon-haired's mouth opening to apologize, Yuko cut her off immediately with a raise of the hand.

"It's okay, Takamina. You don't have to apologize for something I dreamt about." She assured her. It has been two years since her parents' death, and her best friend knew how deep the wounds were. She had become a witness to long nights of thrashing about all throughout the time she spent as the brown-haired's roommate, and Yuko wouldn't have blamed her if she had decided to move out.

But she didn't. The younger girl stayed up with her on those nights the nightmares frequented her by, rubbing her back as she sobbed out her frustration of either not knowing the truth or not being able to save them. And thankfully, after months of sleepless nights, the nightmares lessened and finally allowed the girls to catch up on sleep they were deprived of.

To their dismay, they didn't completely left the brown-haired alone. Just two weeks ago, the anniversary of her parents' death came and every wound Yuko thought had healed started to reopen once more. The dreams may have been less frequent in comparison to the years before, but she can't let the both of them suffer any more sleepless nights. No, she can't let herself fall back into that hole. Not when there is a perfectly good solution by downing a Dreamless potion that she can get from the school infirmary.

"So," Yuko drawled as she cleared her throat in hopes of changing the subject to chase away the silence that formed. "Are you headed out for a walk?" she asked with a tilt of her chin, gesturing at the black robe that the ribbon-haired donned over her casual clothes. Turning her attention to the window, she noticed the light of dawn entering the room and raised a brow in question at the younger girl. "Isn't it a bit early for you to go for a walk?"

"It actually rang six half an hour ago, Yuko." Her roommate chuckled as she shook her head in response, fixing her collar before she gestured outside the window and at the once of the bell towers of Akiba. Yuko gazed at it with a furrowed brows, wondering to herself how the people in this realm consider such a thing as a reliable source of time. It was pitiful and useless, if you ask her. But then, it wasn't like they can use watches here like in the Material realm.

Takamina cleared her throat, capturing her attention as she walked over to her desk and began gathering her books in a pile with satchel ready to be filled. "I was just about to wake you." She shrugged, "Thought you might oversleep and miss the last hour of breakfast or Study Hall."

"Thank goodness I didn't have to." The ribbon-haired smirked as she leaned against the wall, eyes twinkling with mirth. "I doubt you would have heard me over your snoring."

Yuko ignored the bait as she shrugged back, posing herself in her chair as one can do confidently in one's pajamas, hands gesturing at her entire body. "Thanks but no thanks, midget." She ignored the scowl that replaced the smirk. "My awesome self knows when to wake itself up without help, midget."

"I am not that much shorter than you, Shorty." Takamina retorted, arms crossing over her chest as she tried not to seem as put out as she felt with the remark. The older would only use it as incentive to tease her even further. Fortunately for her, Yuko only raised her hands in surrender as she stood up and stretched her body, back facing the shorter girl. "Whatever you say, Takamidget."

"Stop. Calling. Me. That." The younger girl gritted her teeth in annoyance. When the brown-haired smirked back at her over her shoulder, Takamina let out a sigh and decided to stop the banter before it become another one of their usual arguments. "I don't know why I let you get a rise out of me every single time."

"That's because you love me, Takamidget." The older girl grinned cheekily, stepping quickly to the side when the ribbon-haired made a move of grabbing her books. When no book flew straight at her, Yuko cleared her throat and pretended not to have stepped out of the way. "Anyway, I'm guessing you're done with breakfast with the way you're dressed. Are you heading straight for Study Hall?"

"Yeah," Takamina nodded, holding up stacks of paper with a disgruntled expression on her face. "I have to write some paper about some charms we learned before and how it can be upgraded to advance charms or spells." She sighed, rubbing her entire face with her hand as a weary sigh left her lips. "I thought it was easy at first, but I have to explain it in a minimum of thirty pages."

"Wow…" Yuko shook her head in disbelief, "I wonder how many times you can paraphrase your explanation." With an understanding look, the older girl watched as her roommate's shoulders slumped in defeat as she sat on her chair with a bitter smile on her face.

Takamina, also known as Takahashi Minami to many people, waved off her concern as she ran her fingers through her tied up hair, loosening it as it tangled some hair away from the huge ribbon that completed her signature look. "I doubt being the professor's daughter will help ease up the load." The younger girl chuckled, though it frustration was quite evident to her roommate, who knew the irony of that statement.

If there was anything the older girl has learned from the first few months she had spent rooming with the ribbon-haired, it would be that Takamina despised the very subject her own mother teaches in Majijo Gakuen. Alright, _despise _may be too strong of a word, but the older girl knew that if there was any possibility for the shorter girl to have chosen a Mastery course other than Charms without any backlash from her family, she would have done so the very moment she passed their PCLE.

"I'm okay, Yuko." The younger girl sighed, interrupting her before she could ask whether she was fine the moment she saw her opening her mouth to do so. Shaking her head, Takamina asked with a small laugh as she quirked a brow at her roommate. "Why wouldn't I be?" She smiled a bit more forcefully. "I've never been better!"

Figuring that the shorter girl was going to be pretending she was, Yuko decided not to play along like she usually would, and walked closer to where the younger girl sat, taking a seat on her roommate's own bed as she studied the Takahashi heir with concerned eyes. "Hey now," she said with a frown, "Don't try that '_okay´ _crap with me. You know I know you better than that."

The two locked stares for a few minutes until Takamina let out a sigh of defeat, shoulders sagging even more as she glared at the Charms book stacked on the table, hands clenching when she turned her attention to the wand she had taken out of her robe's pocket. "I hate it."

Tracing the flourished _Takahashi _engravedon the wand, the ribbon-haired let out a frustrated sigh and groaned. "The spells are getting harder to do and I don't know when the façade is going to end! When will they realize that I don't know when my magic works? That I can't control it?"

"I almost injured someone yesterday with a Severing Charm yesterday, Yuko! For Guardians' sake, I had to cast it several times when it wouldn't work, and once it did, a classmate's arm was almost cut off!" Glaring disdainfully at the family heirloom — a wand of fourteen and a half inches long — she gritted her teeth before looking at her friend and laughing humorlessly. "I bet everyone's going to have a good laugh once they find out that the Great Takahashi Heir fails at the very subject every Sorcerer is supposed to excel in."

"My family will disown me."

The younger girl choked out with a sob as Yuko helplessly stared at her friend, face softening to one of sadness as she realized the unfortunate truth in the ribbon-haired's words. It was a well-known fact that sorcerers and sorceresses were more unforgiving than wizards or witches when it came to their children wielding magic.

Considering how the Takahashi bloodline is one of the few remaining magic-wielding families that didn't mate with humans or other kind of Mundane, all the pressure and expectations have been forcibly shoved to the only child directly linked to the line, much to the younger girl's dismay. The brown-haired knew that everything would have been alright if her roommate's magic came in large bursts of power, but it wasn't the case.

Often, the Takahashi heir has to repeat incantations or practice them needlessly before a spell or charm could be perfected, something that should be coming easily to one born into a family untainted by humans or any other kind of Mundane, much less a prominent bloodline at that. To have problems that no sorceress— a wielder of magic with supposed inborn talent of casting charms and spells— have…it is a tragedy.

Yuko can't say her roommate can be actually called a pureblooded sorceress though, unlike any other Takahashi. Years before her birth, her mother, Takahashi Kou, married a witch named Ishikawa Akio. It was a marriage that caused a huge uproar that almost had the Charms professor disowned. However, being a direct link to the bloodline, along with Akio being a woman of great skills, Kou remained un-disowned.

That, unfortunately, does not mean the same thing for Takamina. Even with being born directly to the bloodline isn't enough to help her keep the Takahashi name. Not with her facing problems that only other Mundane kinds and squibs face. She was already a black sheep. Add _'a Takahashi incapable of controlling when her magic works' _to that...Well, Yuko doesn't even want to think of the amount of humiliation her best friend would face along with her family disowning her.

It was for this very reason why the younger girl threatened to cut off her tongue to keep the secret for the rest of her life when Yuko made an offhanded joke about Takamina having problems wielding magic and should have been considered a witch rather than a sorceress. Let's just say that purebloods don't like being told they are spawns of mixed Mundanes or humans. They find it a great insult to their purity.

"Maybe you're a late bloomer?" Yuko suggested, hoping that it would help in a way to soothe her, though also knowing that she was grasping at straws here. "I mean, there are sorcerers that had been late bloomers right? You can't be the only one. Besides, your mothers are powerful. It makes no sense why your magic resembles one of a…" she trailed off, trying hard to think of any other word other than the one she currently has one in mind.

"A squib's." Takamina deadpanned.

The older girl winced. "Thanks for trying to give me hope, Yuko. But late bloomers rarely occurs when you're a daughter of a sorceress and a powerful witch. They only happen to other Mundanes such as yourself." Takamina smiled sadly, referring to the time when the taller girl was having problems of her own when it came to her powers.

"You never know, Minami." Yuko said softly, hand reaching out to squeeze her roommate's arm comfortingly. "You may be a witch, but you've had generations of Takahashi bloodline backing up the chances of you being a late bloomer rather than a squib." She grinned. "The Takamina I know wouldn't fail at something just to give up in the end."

"She would fail time and time again," Yuko ignored the offended look on her face, "only to bounce right back up, knowing that failure is merely a step closer to success." Poking a finger at her chest, the older girl raised a brow. "And she once asked me when was the last time I've succeeded without failing or getting close to it?" She retracted her hand.

"Look at how you've gotten so far, Takamina." The younger girl smiled a bit. "You've gotten further than any other squibs have. You're taking a Mastery III course, and you saved me back then from that vampire wraith. Don't you think that's saying something along the lines of Takahashi Minami Is Just A Late Bloomer?" Takamina rolled her eyes, good-naturedly elbowing her as she laughed.

"I seem to recall there were two others with us during that exam, Yuko." When the older girl merely waved off her reminded, Takamina chuckled to herself. "So I guess I get no reward for being the Greatest Failure?" Receiving a deadpanned look, the shorter girl sighed out in defeat. "Alright, no more pity party and bad jokes."

"Good," Yuko nodded in satisfaction, "because I think I vomited in my mouth from all that mushy stuff." She blanched, earning a snigger from the younger girl. They seldom have times like this, and when they do, things tend to get a bit awkward afterwards. It was fortunate they rarely do need such a speech from one another.

"I think my breakfast actually rose up to my throat." Takamina grinned cheekily as she stood up quickly to take a step aside, dodging the swat from her scowling roommate. "Better get your arse up and moving, Yuko. Your gag-worthy speech just cost you an hour." Fixing her robe, the younger girl placed her books inside the satchel. "You only have thirty minutes left before Study Hall begins."

She quipped. "I suggest you go and shower before your stench kills me and everyone else with a functional nose."

Yuko masked her relief at the spark that returned to her roommate's eyes with a scowl, stretching her entire body for the nth time that morning as she stood up, patting her best friend on the shoulder as she made her way towards her wardrobe. "I don't smell." She retorted, slightly offended by the mere audacity of the girl telling her that when she was the one who usually had to drag the ribbon-haired away from her desk to take a bath.

"Yeah, yeah. Tell that to someone who doesn't have a nose." Takamina chuckled, rolling her eyes at the older girl when she poked her tongue out. Slinging her satchel filled with books, the Takahashi heir grabbed her papers and headed out the door. "I'm off!"

"Save me a seat, midget!" she shouted after her as she closed the door to their bedroom, towel and clothing in hand while watching the younger girl wave a hand in acknowledgment. Hearing the bell tower ringing for the seventh hour, the brown-haired cursed under her breath and rushed to the Girls' Bath. "I don't smell." She muttered under her breath as she shoved her clothes onto the rack and got under the shower, shaking her head with a chuckle.

T rust her roommate to tell her she smelled when she regularly bathes.

Glossary:

PCLE – Primary Course Leaving Examination

Material Realm – also known as the realm for humans or the Human Realm


End file.
